author
Chas. M. (Charles Michael) Higgins
1854–1929
Best known for creating Higgins American India Ink, this Irish-born Brooklyn entrepreneur also wrote forceful pamphlets on public issues he cared deeply about. His life bridged invention, business, and outspoken activism.
1 Audiobook
Horrors of vaccination exposed and illustrated Petition to the President to abolish compulsory vaccination in Army and Navy
by Chas. M. (Charles Michael) Higgins
About the author
Born in County Leitrim, Ireland, in 1854, he moved to Brooklyn as a child and went on to build a successful ink-making business. He is chiefly remembered as the inventor of Higgins American India Ink and as the head of the Charles M. Higgins Company, whose products became widely used by artists, draftsmen, and writers.
He also wrote and published pamphlets on religion, morality, patriotism, and public health. Some of his surviving works focus especially on his campaign against compulsory vaccination, showing how strongly he used print to argue for his views.
Today, he stands out as a figure who was both practical and intensely opinionated: an inventor and manufacturer with a real mark on everyday creative tools, and a prolific pamphleteer whose writings preserve the convictions and controversies of his era.